


pilgrimage

by Umbrella_ella



Category: Shetland (TV)
Genre: F/M, this is what happens when you leave me unattended
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-04
Updated: 2018-04-04
Packaged: 2019-04-18 06:26:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,474
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14207085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Umbrella_ella/pseuds/Umbrella_ella
Summary: "Jimmy Perez, known to all of Shetland as a good inspector, is apparently not immune to moments of absolute dumbfounded surprise. His mouth falls open, even as a grin tugs at his rough cheeks. Seated at the bar, knees tugged up beneath her chin, is Cassie, her hair spilling out of it’s loose braid, her head thrown back in a laugh. At the stove, as if she’d always been there, is Tosh, and Jimmy feels his chest broaden with all of the breaths he’d forgotten to take, and the tightness at his temples unwinds. Jimmy clears his throat, wary of intruding on this moment."Jimmy/Tosh reunion fic, post series three.





	pilgrimage

**Author's Note:**

> I had no intention of ever writing fic for Shetland, but then Jimmy Perez and Alison McIntosh took over my life and utterly destroyed me in series three, so this is what you get, guys. A Jimmy/Tosh reunion fic with a side of Cassie.

Jimmy Perez has always woken with the grey of the day stretching out from behind the gaps in his curtains, but today, the warmth of his bed pulls him in, beckons him to nestle deeper, to clutch at the pillows and ward off the wakefulness that threatens his peace.

His back aches, unkindly, and he absently wonders, even as he burrows deeper into sleep, if it’s a misty day.

When he does wake, when the light of the grey skies and the wind funnels into the harbor with a howl, it’s with a bleary blink.

His feet are warm, though he hisses when his feet hit the chilly hard wood, and he fumbles for his socks, tugging them on, a blessed relief from the cold that crawls up his spine.

It’s been a solitary few weeks, Duncan back with Mary, Cassie in Brazil, Tosh off in Glasgow, and everyone else in his life so busy that they’ve hardly got time for a pint. Even Sandy, reliable Sandy, is too busy with Jenny and the kids, and before Jimmy knows it, he’s on holiday to Glasgow, and Jimmy, it seems, is forgotten.

Jimmy rubs at his eyes, walking the path between his bedroom and his kitchen with a seamless knowing, but he starts, more out of surprise than hurt when his toe catches on the boots in the entryway.

He looks down and the boots are lined up in the foyer with his own, as if they’d always been there, always belonged there. A peal of laughter from the kitchen wrenches his from his rumination, even as he notes a second, similar pair of boots next to the other.

Jimmy Perez, known to all of Shetland as a good inspector, is apparently not immune to moments of absolute dumbfounded surprise. His mouth falls open, even as a grin tugs at his rough cheeks. Seated at the bar, knees tugged up beneath her chin, is Cassie, her hair spilling out of it’s loose braid, her head thrown back in a laugh. At the stove, as if she’d always been there, is Tosh, and Jimmy feels his chest broaden with all of the breaths he’d forgotten to take, and the tightness at his temples unwinds. Jimmy clears his throat, wary of intruding on this moment.

Tosh’s gaze flies to where he stands, and Cassie’s braid swings out as she twists in her seat.

“Dad!” Cassie scrambles off of the stool, and catapults herself into Jimmy’s chest, her head tucked beneath his chin as easily as it had done when she was a wee one. “I thought to wake ye, but I thought it’d be better for ye to have a bit of a lie in.”

“Cassie?” Jimmy leans back, studying his daughter, her eyes sparkling and her cheeks a rosy pink in the early fall nip that seems to wedge itself inside the small home, “what’re ye doin’ here?”

It’s not lost on him, the way a flicker of sadness darkens her face, but she smiles anyway.

“What, I can’t visit my dad every now and again?” she jests, her fingers toying with the wool beneath her palm, tugging him to her once more before she’s off, slipping away from him. This time, he follows.

The stool next to Cassie’s creaks beneath his weight, and the morning exhaustion still creeps in, tugging at his bones, even as he sweeps his hands along his cheeks, rough and unkempt, in an effort to smooth the creases from his face.

“We were on the same flight back, Dad, believe it or not,” Cassie says, her attention rapt on her phone as she types out a text.

Jimmy looks across the counter then, at Tosh, where she stands, keeping watch over the crackle of eggs in a pan, poking at them with the spoon in her hand.

“You’re back.” He’s never been eloquent, and perhaps there’s too much and not enough said, all at once, but Tosh smiles at him then, and the smile reaches her eyes, just barely, there, in the corners, and he finds that he might like to keep it there for as long as he can. The sudden clarity of the thought, the magnitude of it is enough to keep him talking, distancing himself from it, “they let you have some time away then?”

It’s in jest, and Jimmy’s never been very good at joking, and this is no exception, but it feels right, the way Tosh turns back to the eggs, silence reigning for a moment, before she flips the eggs and turns back around, her fingers clutching at the spoon as though it’s a life line.

“No,” Tosh says, and Jimmy feels his eyebrows knit together in confusion, and before he can ask, Tosh is answering, “I asked. To come back, I mean.”

Jimmy stares at her, then, and suddenly, he needs to speak to her, to ask her, to tell her, to tell her how much he’d missed her, well and truly, but before he can suggest it, Cassie’s across from him, snatching the utensil from Tosh’s grip and gesturing outside.

“Right, well, I’ll cook, you two, out— go have a chat. I’ll bring tea in a few.” Cassie turns a warning glance towards Jimmy, and Jimmy slips off of the stool.

“Tosh?” he asks. He’ll always ask, he always has, because it’s her choice to follow him, it always will be. He’ll never expect it. 

“Yeah, sure.” Tosh shifts past Cassie with a fond squeeze to her shoulder, and walks to the door, pushing her boots onto her feet.

When he follows, his own coat tugged around himself, Jimmy joins Tosh where she’s perched on the wall just outside, and she seems so small, against the stone of the wall, against the grey and silver sea that stretches out beyond her. He hums at the way the wind whips across his face, a chill spreading to his bones, burrowing there.

He steps up, his thighs touching the stone, and stares out to the water for a while, waiting.

If he glances over once or twice to check that she’s there, well, there’s only the sea to say so.

“I can’t run from it, Jimmy,” her voice is soft, and he’s only heard her say his proper name a few times, but it warms him nonetheless. “I can’t pretend that everything’s alrigh’, ‘cos it isn’t, and I can’t be somewhere else. It’s like… It’s like I’ve lost a part of meself, and I weren’t sure I had, but I can feel it. There’s no use. Not when-”

Tosh stops then, and the gravel in her voice is thick and pulls at Jimmy’s heart, a press of bile rising up at the back of his throat as he thinks of Tosh, a good detective, a good DS, waking alone in a city that is not quite known to her, but not quite a stranger, trying to outrun nightmares that cling to her.

She takes a breath, and Jimmy hears her exhaling tremble, and her arms tuck tighter around herself, and Jimmy wants to kill the man who did this to her, who stole Tosh’s boldness.

“I’m home, now. Shetland is home. And I can’t leave. Who’s to say what kind of state the station might be in without me?” It’s as much of a joke as he’s heard her tell in months, and he guffaws at that, the kind of start of laughter that doesn’t quite finish, but she laughs too, then, a small chuckle, lost on the wind, and she turns to look at him. He studies her, then, and she’s pale and tired, and the ache of just being is there, etched into the heavy lines framing her mouth, into the purpling bags beneath her eyes.

“Ye sayin’ ye don’t trust my work without ye?” Jimmy says, instead of everything else he wants to say. There’s time enough for that.

“I’m not sayin’ that, only Sandy’s Sandy, isn’t he?” Tosh studies him for a moment, and it’s quiet then, but Jimmy’s not afraid of the silence that yawns out between them. It’s filled with everything he has yet to say, so he tucks his hands into his pockets and simply says, “Glad to have you back, Tosh.” 

Later that evening, when Cassie is wrung out from the day of catching up with the goings on on the islands, and clambers off to bed, and the night looms on the horizon, Jimmy brings out a beer in each hand, offering one to Tosh as he flops next to her on the sofa.

“Will you stay, then? Really?”

“Yeah, I think I will.” Tosh thumbs the neck of the bottle, where the label peels off and flaps uselessly against her hand. Jimmy looks at her then, and smiles.

“Good,” Jimmy says, and he means it.


End file.
